Youlbury History Project
Passing by the spiked peak of Seacourt Tower, or the rows of hous-
es that stretch from Elms Parade to Westminster College, it is hard
to imagine that a century and a half ago these bustling centres were
home only to flocks of grazing livestock, held among the dozen or so
farms that dotted the rural landscape. From the floodplains at Osney
to the peaks of Boars Hill, a quiet and largely treeless expanse of
emerald green pastureland covered an area now loud with the deaf-
ening chorus of the A34 that underscores the fast pace of modern
life. Then, the only din would have come from the bells of Oxford’s
churches, which could be heard clearly in North Hinksey during the
lockdown that cut traffic on the roads that now bisect the area.
Visitors from Oxford to this scenic part of what was, until recently,
the county of Berkshire would have entered along the Botley Road
or over the old Ferry at North Hinksey by the Fishes, in continual
existence since the Middle Ages. Looking back towards Oxford in
the late 19th Century, the viewer would be met with the dreaming
spires and towers of the colleges that still rise majestically above the
city.
However, the industrial revolution and population explosion that
shook Britain’s Victorian cities could also be seen within this pano-
rama, with the black smoke of ironclad steam trains blanketing the
densely populated suburbs that were spilling out into the fields
around. The great figures of Oxford life, no longer comfortable in the
industrialising university town, sought the solitary heights of Boars
Hill to build new residential villas enclosed by defensive tree planta-
tions that still dominate the area. In 1894, Sir Arthur Evans, keeper
of the Ashmolean Museum and world famous for his discovery and
excavation of the Cretan palace of Knossos, bought a secluded
estate on the northern edge of Boars Hill and named it Youlbury.
This is the period in which my research begins, as my archaeology
and history university dissertation will focus on the changes this
small area went through as part of the wider social and political pro-
cesses that swept through Britain in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
There was a strong belief, particularly among the ruling classes, that
European society had become sick in body and mind, and that cen-
tral to this decline in Britain was the growth of the working class in its
overcrowded industrialised cities. Weakness and immorality showed